More fund graphs from data pulled from the most recent Comprehensive Annual Finance Report (CAFR), you can see part 1 here.
The number of Business Licenses that have been issued, please note that there was no data for 2008 so it’s not as though there were zero, the number simply was not captured.
My favorite City Department (I know, it’s sad that I have a favorite City Department) is easily the City Clerk’s office. Everyone, and I mean, everyone in that office is terrific. Starting from the top with the City Clerk herself all the way down the chain. The office is responsive and timely and so nice. An added bonus is that the City Clerk has a cheerful and pleasant voice since she has to read through all those god awful agenda item titles at every single meeting. So if you were wondering who is saying things like “Agenda item 5-G, Ordinance to paint every fifth house blue in the City of Alameda,” that’s her.
Now, it’s not to say that other departments are bad, they aren’t, but as a whole if you are looking for a completely non stressful interaction with a City Department, it’s the City Clerk’s office.
There is a point to my gushing about the City Clerk’s office, the point is, they are immensely accessible, so if you do have a question about an issue, say, oh about what office is the appropriate one to file campaign disclosures, they can and will answer you. So that you don’t end up posting information like this:
Opponents of Measure E, the parcel tax, have referred to the new Master Plan as a part of their arguments against the parcel tax, as though the Master Plan contains something unusual or framed the discussion in such a way that readers not following along closely would infer that the the Master Plan is a litany of new spending that AUSD will go buck wild with dollars that come in if Measure E is to pass.
Of course, this argument relies on the fact that few people will have read the Master Plan.
So, here is my attempt to summarize the elements of the Master Plan. I think folks will find it interesting given how others have tried frame what the Master Plan is attempting and who it is trying to serve and exclude.
The first element in the Master Plan is to:
Redesign Central Office for efficiency and quality service; invest cost savings in learning; and decentralize many central functions with funding and accountability to school sites.
At the end of every Comprehensive Annual Financial Report there are these lists of “Operating Indicators by Function/Program that are fairly informative, but are in table format. So I drew out a few items that I thought would be interesting in graph format, since I was digging around in the CAFR anyway.
So here are some graphs detailing some of the public safety items from 2000 – 2009.
This graph is for Police Calls for Service, 2007 spikes down because there is no data for that year.
Am I the only one that finds it dreadfully ironic that one of the leaders of the group that is organizing against the parcel tax, Measure E, has filed a lawsuit against the school district. but then is attempting to use the argument that the school district doesn’t deserve the money from a parcel tax because it will “Generate More Lawsuits. Costing our Schools More Money for Lawyers.”
Essentially he is saying that, I have cost the school district a bucketload of money in legal fees, but don’t pass this parcel tax because even though I was the cause of the school district needing to spend this money, I am going to use the argument that the parcel tax money will go toward lawyers fees and therefore not a worthwhile use of your tax dollars.
It’s supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow, so what better way to spend a Saturday morning than to help beautify a school?
Jillian Saxty, Liz Warmerdam, and Kris Nelson are working on a bit of a facade improvement for the Chipman Middle School campus, right now the front of Chipman looks like this:
It’s pretty sad looking, not at all inviting, but thanks to the wonderful Shirley Watt (she helped redesign the entrance to Haight Elementary in 2007), there is a new design for the Chipman campus:
So after reading this post by Michele Ellson over at The Island and this one by Alameda Watchdog at East Bay For Open Government, I was super excited to watch Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.
It was, as described by Michele E., seem to be
“more closely resemble scenes from a failing marriage than negotiations for a major land deal”
There was the drawn out conversation over the whole density bonus thing which went back and forth and back and forth. It appears that SunCal, the City, and the City Council weren’t speaking the same language over this issue. Everyone was too defensive for any meaningful dialogue and it just ended up being super defensive. The point of contention was whether the Council adopted Density Bonus ordinance in December was substantially different than the State Density Bonus law currently on the books. It appeared that SunCal’s answer was “yes” and the Council/City Staff’s answer was “no.” The end result is that the Mayor suggested that SunCal have their lawyers draft a brief and the City Attorney will draft a brief on the issue and then…?
There is a lot of information flying out there about Measure E, the Parcel Tax, and had I not received several emails asking for clarifying information, I would have thought that most folks have the basic details.
Fact 1: Measure E is a mail-in ballot only. That means you won’t be going to the polls to vote for or against Measure E. Ballots will be mailed out May 25 and you have until June 22 to mail them back or drop them off at the office of the Registrar of Voters. Of course, the ballot has to be physically at the office of the Registrar of Voters on June 22 and not postmarked by. It’s not your taxes.
Tonight, under Council Referral, Mayor Johnson has pulled an item from the list of issues that the Sunshine Task Force was going to be considering as part of its duties. Apparently the Mayor is fixated on this “lobbyist registry” thing, which sort of falls in line with the fixation that Interim City Manager, Ann Marie Gallant, has on the list of lobbyists and consultants that SunCal used during their campaign as well. Since she sent that letter to SunCal, they have disclosed a listing of all their expenditures including all consultants and community groups they gave money to.
So apparently, the Mayor doesn’t feel as though the Sunshine Task Force will act quickly or decisively enough before the November election to get a lobbyist registry up and going. Interestingly enough, the Mayor has selected as a model the Oakland ordinance.
The contention that AUSD is “failing” Latino and black students because “[d]ropout rates are higher and test scores are lower than for white and Asian students” removes the data from the context in which it should be examined. This argument against Measure E that was proffered by a My Word contributor fails to recognize that in the grand scheme of things, AUSD is graduating Latino and black students at a better rate than the state average and even the Alameda County average.
Statewide, the ethnic breakdown for drop-outs looks like this:
| African American | 34.7% |
| Asian | 8.4% |
| Latino | 25.5% |
| White | 12.2% |
